By Lorraine Murphy. Friends and families of the 1,300+ patients buried in the grounds of St Loman’s Hospital have been invited to The Annebrook House Hotel on Sunday, February 18 at 3pm to connect and discuss the possibility of erecting a memorial wall. Three drivers of this project are Kathy Crinion, her cousin Julie Clarke and singer/ mental health advocate Bressie. Kathy told Topic about her great-great-grandmother Julia Leonard who was a patient in the midlands psychiatric hospital.
“In 1897, Julia was 32 years old and had five children, the youngest just 18 months old. She accused her husband of having an affair, he denied it and she threw tea in his face. He went to his doctor, got her certified and she was brought by police escort, I think on a horse and carriage, to St. Loman’s. He put all five of their children in the workhouse in Trim, even though her sister offered to care for them. When Julia was two months in St Loman’s they discovered she was pregnant. She delivered a baby boy in there but soon after the birth he was sent to the workhouse too. Without her six children, Julia was put to work in the laundry section and died in the hospital from heart failure, 22 years later. Her husband went on to have another family and six more children.”
